The Iron Sheik was one of the greatest foreign heels in the WWF and defeated Bob Backlund to win the WWF Championship in 1983.
He lost the title to Hulk Hogan at the Madison Square Garden in 1984.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Hogan said that he was willing to put over Sheik to let him continue his title reign, but wanted to leave after it to go back to the AWA.
“When I went back (to the WWF), I had just been in Minnesota. I spent 3 years there. That Hulk-a-Mania thing had started there. I was on fire there. I mean, really on fire.
Now when I go back to New York, Vince has flown to my house. We talked about doing a deal. So it’s on a certain day I’m coming back to New York. I did two, three weeks of TV. Then when I was supposed to beat The Iron Sheik for the belt that night, Vince Sr. was there.
He always had these half glasses that he’d look over and he’s always clicking quarters together when he is talking to you. I’m standing there with Vince Sr. and Vince Jr. and myself, and Bob Backlund was standing there, who was the champion that The Iron Sheik beat for the belt.
Now The Iron Sheik has the belt and Backlund thought he was getting the belt back. Backlund was my guy. I used to go to Japan. I trained with him in Japan when nobody else would run steps with him and everything in the hotel.
All of a sudden, I’m sitting there and Vince is clicking the quarters together and goes, ‘Well, I’m really thinking, you know, that I really don’t think we should do this night. We should put this off for about 6 months’, and Bob Backlund pops up and says, ‘Yeah, I think a real athlete should be the champion.’
So I’m looking over at him, right, and like, what the hell’s going on here, you know? Then out of nowhere, you know, I said, ‘Well, guys, I just had a huge bridge I just burned down in Minnesota. I built a big bridge there. I’ll tell you what. I’ll wrestle The Iron Sheik tonight and I’ll put his a$$ over because that’s business, but I’m leaving. I’m going back and rebuilding that bridge. Thank you guys very much for bringing me up there.’
I went back to the dressing room. It was about 10 or 15 minutes later Vince Jr. came in. He said, ‘Everything’s okay. I talked to my dad. Everything is settled down.'”
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